This roundtable discussion addresses and asks fundamental questions about performing arts and its role, if any, in teaching and provoking change towards more equitable, open-minded, and stable societies. Significant focus will be on communities and identity groups that receive minimal attention in sweeping narratives about justice and bigotry. 

This event is sponsored by the Department of Theatre in partnership with the Department of African & African American Studies, and the Residential College in the Arts & Humanities.

PARTICIPANTS
Ike Holter—award-winning playwright and screenwriter
Shannon Matesky—actress, producer, director, and writer
Durell Callier—Assistant Professor, Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University

IKE HOLTER (he/him) is a playwright and screenwriter whose plays I Hate it Here and Lottery Day was produced at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. Additional Chicago credits include Red Rex (Steep Theatre); Rightlynd (Victory Gardens Theatre); The Light Fantastic, Prowess and Exit Strategy (Jackalope Theatre); The Wolf at the End of the Block (Teatro Vista); Sender (A Red Orchid Theatre); and Hit the Wall (The Inconvenience). Off-Broadway credits include Exit Strategy (Primary Stages); and Hit the Wall (Barrow Street). Regional credits include Put Your House in Order (La Jolla Playhouse). TV credits include Fosse/Verdon (FX). Ike is developing a project with Tribeca Productions/Netflix and the HAROLD series for Wayfarer Studios. He is a winner of the WGA Award for Fosse/Verdon and the Windham-Campbell Prize for playwriting. www.ikeholter.com

SHANNON MATESKY (she/her) is an Actress, Producer, Director and Writer who originated the role of Roberta in Hit the Wall. Matesky was a member of the 2018 Directors Lab at Lincoln Center in New York and has been an assistant director at Chicago’s Court Theater and Goodman Theater. She has taught writing workshops, led panels, and been a featured speaker at many universities. Shannon is also author of four solo performances, She Think She Grown, We Gotta Eat, The Saga of the Return, and Heartbreak Hotel: Whitney. Shannon has produced live events and festivals such as Urban Word NYC’s Grand Slam finals at the Apollo Theater, Brave New Voices International Teen Poetry Festival, and the Life is Living Community Festival. Shannon recently closed a three-year run of Queer Abstract, a monthly QTPOC variety show in Brooklyn, NY which she created and hosted. www.shannonmatesky.com

DURELL M. CALLIER, PhD (he/him), is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Miami University. His research documents, analyzes, and interrogates the lived experience of Black youth and the racialized queer dynamics of power within educative spaces and practices. An artist-scholar, he is co-author of, Performative Intergenerational Dialogues of a Black Quartet: Qualitative Inquiries on Race, Gender, Sexualities, and Culture (Routledge); Who look at me?!: Shifting the Gaze of Education Through Blackness, Queerness, and the Body (Brill), and co-founder of Hill L. Waters, a Black queer feminist arts-based collective. Currently, he is working on two book projects, including a celebration and remembrance of Black queer life through a series of collages and embodied performances.

PHILIP EFFIONG, PhD (he/him) currently teaches in the Theatre Department at Michigan State University (MSU). Prior to joining MSU in 2017, he taught courses in the humanities at various Nigerian, Ghanaian, and American universities. In addition to a book on African American drama, Philip’s articles, which cover topics in the humanities, appear in various journals and encyclopedias. His teaching and research interests continue to crisscross multiple disciplines, including performance, literature, history, religion, politics, identity, and culture. Philip has also worked as an Oracle programmer and, as a consultant, has carried out writing projects for nonprofit and governmental organizations. www.theatre.msu.edu/effiong